Britta Stromeyer Esmail Invited to be Suite101 Dual Citizen!

Posted by Lima Al-Azzeh May 25, 2009

Recently Britta Stromeyer Esmail was invited to join our league of Suite101 Dual Citizens. I asked her to weigh in on the cultural differences she anticipates encountering as a writer for Suite101.com (English) and Suite101.de (German). Here are her insights:

“I’d say that a lot of German writing probably has more of an academic undertone as many writers and journalists have graduate degrees. When writing specifically about diversity and cross-cultural management, which is one of my expertise areas, the emphasis of the article will vary.

For example, in North America diversity issues frequently have a greater emphasis on ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation. In the European context the emphasis is more on gender diversity and maybe to some degree on generational diversity but there is less focus on ethnic diversity.

Another cultural difference that will affect my writing approach for .de versus .com is the difference in social structure between German culture and American culture. German businesses are more task oriented while American businesses seem to be results oriented. This means that I have to adjust some of my writing to either emphasize the ‘how’ angle, which will appeal to German audiences, as opposed to the ‘why’ angle, which is more important to American audiences. “

We’d like to extend a big thank you to our Suite101 Dual Citizens and welcome Britta to this growing team!